Matt's Birthday

Hi everyone,
Matt's big 50th birthday bash was fun. It began very early for Eric & Leanna who kindly went down to the Bay in the suburban to grab up and reserve some tables. The spots we really wanted were already taken when they got there before 6am. Matt went down next with the camper full of food and gear to park it nearby. Matt then took the suburban (with trailer hitch) to go get the jet skis. Meanwhile, with the seats down and two big ice chests in my car Karen and I went to shop at Costco for the perishables, loaded the chests and then got ice on our way to the Bay. Karen flew in late Thursday night to surprise her Daddy. Karen left last night (Monday) after dinner in Old Town to celebrate one more time.
Eric, Leanna and a batch of their young adult friends helped us unload stuff and then they had the jet skis to themselves for a few hours while we also held down the fort and got the site organized. We had other friends (scouting buddies!) haul gas grills, sunshades and kayaks down for us. It was an extremely hot day, so being near water with a nice breeze was the place to be. Matt's brother, Allen, brought his boat down with an inner tube to tow giving people rides on it. Allen came ashore briefly to eat dinner, otherwise he was going all day. A friend of Matt's from work, Erik, brought an additional jet ski to share, helped monitor the jet skis and was our safety check guy. His help was huge. Just trying to keep life vests back up on shore was a labor of great worth.
Time to start dinner came rather quickly and many people stepped in to help slice tomatoes, mix the salads, spread out the condiments, put the drinks in ice, etc., etc. Then a friend of many years, Jeff Devenberg, took over the grill and single handedly heated the corn and baked beans as well as grilled all the hamburgers and hot dogs. I'm so grateful. Several people brought some fruit to contribute and Margo, my sister in law, brought three (the largest Tupperware) bowls of fruit. It was delicious and it was all eaten. Matt successfully blew out all 50 candles and three Costco cakes were devoured except one edge of the carrot cake which I then hid away to have a piece for breakfast. It was a team effort to have such a bash and our appreciation grows as we relive the day.
Jason Robbins, our scout master, gathered pictures of Matt and prepared the slide show. It was great. Matt, himself, was pulling the skis out of the water and loading them onto the trailers soon after sunset when we needed to present the show, so he missed it. We watched it together with Jason and some others the next night. The firewood for the bon fire was brought down by Nathan Squire, one of the groom's men from our wedding. By the time we were making "woofems" around the fire, it was late, our numbers were few consisting mostly of the same young adults from the beginning of the day. It was they who then helped us with the final loading of all the junk back into the camper, suburban and my car and to call it quits. With tired bodies and strange spots here and there of sun burned skin we got home, did only what had to be done to save the perishables and crawled into bed about 1am.
Matt had friends from work, volleyball and church as well as the family come celebrate with him. We were ready for 200 people and had, I'm guessing, about 150. Matt wanted a lot of people to have a lot of fun. With this as his criteria it was a successful day. Sunday, our nephew, David Sensenbaugh came over and told Matt it was the best day he can remember. This comment made Matt grin hugely.
Eric returned the skis to the rental place in the morning while Matt was already in meetings at church. Matt took the next day, Monday, June 23rd, his actual birthday, off from work and spent most of it cleaning up, storing away and returning the gear. He was able to lounge in the hammock for a little while and like I already mentioned we went out to eat before taking Karen to the airport.
One of life's ironies is that "fun" takes work. We only wish that everyone we love could have been with us on Saturday.
Bye for now, Kay